Cerritos eyes pilot car plug-in program

CERRITOS - Electric and hybrid car owners would have an opportunity to plug in their vehicles at city charging stations by early October if the City Council approves a pilot program.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the plan at Thursday's meeting.

The program includes installing two charging stations on the top level of the Cerritos Civic Center parking structure. The stations would be owned by ECOtality and leased to the city.

Users would pay about $1.50 an hour, and a vehicle would be charged in four to eight hours. Half of the revenue would go to ECOtality and the other half would go to the city, according to a staff report.

The only out-of-pocket cost to the city would be $5,000 for an electrician to install a conduit from the nearest power source, the staff report said.

City Manager Art Gallucci, Public Works Director Hal Arbogast, Assistant City Engineer Kanna Vancheswaran and Assistant Civil Engineer Fredy Bonilla are recommending approval of the program.

If the plan is approved, the charging stations would be operational by early October, said Cerritos spokeswoman Annie Hylton.

Cerritos Nissan and Penske Chevrolet at the Cerritos Auto Square have charging stations, but only for customers.

The city has three options once the pilot program ends in December 2013: continue the partnership with ECOtality and split the parking fee revenue; take ownership and maintenance responsibility of the stations and set policy on parking fees, time limits, etc.; or request ECOtality remove the charging stations and return the parking stalls to general public use, the report said.

Sex offender ban

Also on the agenda, the City Council is scheduled to vote on the second reading of an ordinance banning registered sex offenders from city parks and other facilities.

The ordinance was approved at the Aug. 9 meeting. If it is approved Thursday, it will go into effect in 30 days.

Gary Berg, the city's director of community and safety services, told the council Aug. 9 that passing the ordinance isn't going to prevent crime.

Nevertheless, the council passed the ordinance 4-1. Council members Jim Edwards, Bruce W. Barrows, Carol K. Chen and Mark E. Pulido voted in favor of the ordinance.

Councilman Joseph Cho was the dissenting vote.

The proposed ordinance would ban registered sex offenders from all city parks as well as the Civic Center, the library, the Center for the Performing Arts and the Senior Center.

Registered sex offenders have the option of asking permission from either the L.A. County Sheriff's Department or the city's director of community and safety services to enter any of these facilities, according to the proposed ordinance.

The four council members said they supported banning registered sex offenders from all public places as a means of protecting the public.

Berg said enforcement of the proposed ordinance is problematic.

In reality, deputies with the Sheriff's Department don't know the faces of all registered sex offenders and would have to wait for someone to report an incident to them before they could investigate, Berg said.

"These unenforceable laws don't make children safe," Cho said. "They are designed to make politicians look tough on crime and to make people feel good."

The council began discussing the idea last October after Orange and Los Angeles county cities passed similar measures.